“Nostra aetate”: the spirit of truth working beyond the visible boundaries of the Church (4/4)

From biblical meals to the Eucharist, and, more recently, to the dialogue in Abu Dhabi, Christian fraternity is lived through conviviality and sharing. This is the fourth and final installment of our series.

Christianity is, at its heart, convivial. One need only note how many of the Gospel’s most striking scenes unfold around a meal, and how much teaching the Lord delivers at the table. It is a place of shared hospitality, of upended social boundaries, of joyful fraternity and communion. At the Eucharist – the central event of Christian life – the table becomes an altar.

It was over a meal that the idea for the 2019 Abu Dhabi Document on Human Fraternity was born, co-signed by Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayyeb, Grand Imam of al-Azhar. According to America Today (1 December 2020; see also the Egyptian site albawaba), the meal took place in May 2016, following a working session in the Vatican Library. The discussion marked a renewal of dialogue between the Catholic Church and al-Azhar, the great Sunni institution, after several years of tension. Relations between the Holy See and al-Azhar had broken off following the attack on the Coptic cathedral in Alexandria on 1 January 2011: Benedict XVI had stressed the need to protect Christians in Egypt and across the Middle East – a statement that the Egyptian institution regarded as undue Western interference.

In short, at the end of the working session, Pope Francis spontaneously asked the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Ahmad al-Tayyeb, “Do you have plans? Are you having lunch somewhere?” When nothing was arranged, the Pope offered: “May I invite you to lunch?” It was over this very meal that the idea of drafting a joint document on human fraternity was first proposed. According to Mohammad Sammak, Secretary-General of the National Committee for Islamic–Christian Dialogue, the lunch took place at the Domus Sanctae Marthae. As the Pope himself later told the press, the significance of the encounter was clear: “The meeting is the message.”

“The Francis Method”: Fraternity in Action

During the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Nostra aetate (28 October 2025), Leon XIV reflected on the event and paid tribute to what he called the “Francis method” of interreligious dialogue: lived fraternity.

“One of the hallmarks of Pope Francis’s pontificate has been the pursuit of universal fraternity,” he said. “On this point, the Holy Spirit has truly ‘pushed’ him to advance with great momentum the openings and initiatives already undertaken by his predecessors, especially from the time of Saint John XXIII. The Pope has promoted both the ecumenical path and interreligious dialogue, doing so above all by cultivating personal relationships, so that – without diminishing ecclesial bonds – the human aspect of encounter is always valued. May God help us to learn from his example!”

In the same session, Leon XIV added: “Dialogue is not a tactic or a tool, but a way of life – a journey of the heart that transforms all who take part, both the listener and the speaker.”

“Outside the Church, There is No Salvation”

Thanks to this “journey of the heart,” the approach to the texts is no longer what it was in the early centuries, when the priority was defending the unity of the Church against schisms and heresies, and upholding the centrality of faith in Christ. “Outside the Church, there is no salvation!” was the prevailing dictum. At the time, this meant that eternal salvation required formal recognition of Christ and that the Catholic Church was the place where grace was received, particularly through the sacraments of initiation – baptism and confirmation.

Since Vatican II, the development of a theology of the Spirit of truth operating beyond the visible boundaries of the Church has allowed this principle to be interpreted in a less exclusive manner. Certainly, according to the Churches of the world, salvation still comes from God through Christ, and the Church, as the mystical body of Christ, remains the universal sacrament of salvation – the ordinary sign and means through which God acts and saves from sin and its consequences. Yet, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms, those who are not formal members of these Churches can be saved if, through no fault of their own, they have not known the Gospel and sincerely seek the truth of God, following their conscience and the “ray of truth” that their religion has manifested to them (paragraphs 846–848).

Drawing on a rarely studied affirmation in the Gaudium et spes Constitution of Vatican II, French theologian Vincent Guibert underscores this orientation of the magisterium: “The Holy Spirit offers to all, in a way known to God, the possibility of being associated with the paschal mystery” (22, 5). Nostra aetate expresses no different vision.